Life happens…

Dr. Mike can help

DR. MIKE

What I do

I am a consultant you hire to come alongside of you and help you to see more clearly what your problems are. I can help make sense of what is confusing or painful. I have been privileged to work with many people over the years. Therefore, I have seen and heard many if not all of the things you wish you could talk about. I provide a safe place to talk and work out the things that have been bothering you.

Therapeutic Relationship

I am a professional licensed counsellor (Registered Counselling Therapist or RCT) with over 40 years of experience. Counselling is a vocation (or calling) for me. That means it is not just a job, or a set of treatments I do to people. Therapy involves getting to know you and you getting to know me in a trusting relationship.

Research shows that the therapeutic relationship is much more important to the outcome of therapy than any specific treatment or therapeutic theory. Therefore, I recommend at least an introductory phone call so we can meet and talk. It helps us to decide if the relationship looks like it might work. There needs to be a “fit” between us that suggests a positive relationship is possible before either of us can commit to the work of therapy.

The Risk

Seeking out treatment and the development of a therapeutic relationship involves risk-taking. It can be scary to seek help. The vast majority of people never seek out the help they need because of that risk. Many people take the first steps toward getting help but back out at the last minute because of this fear. I encourage you to take the risk. The most common statement I hear from my clients is “I wish I had done this a long time ago when I first thought of it.”

I see clients for a variety of issues:

Dr. Mike

Over 40 years of therapeutic experience, providing counselling therapy to children, teens, adults, couples and families…

I am a specialist trained and experienced in addictions. Therefore, many people who seek me out have a clear connection to addiction themselves, or in a loved one. They often come from a family where addiction has had an impact on their ability to live a full and rich life as an adult.

Other people, whether they have an addiction or not, come for specific treatment of trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), problems with disassociation, depression, anxiety, or other symptoms that they may not be able to describe in diagnostic language. What they have in common is the pain that this creates in their life.

As an experienced addiction professional, I see clients for just about any issue you can imagine. Trauma’s like sexual abuse, physical abuse or neglect, family violence, difficulties with trust in relationships, problems of control or chaotic lives, and many issues too prolific to count or list here are often (but not always) connected to personal or family addiction histories. Whether this is a parent, grandparent, spouse or partner, or a child or grandchild, addiction often accompanies other life problems. Therefore, as an addiction specialist I have to be good at providing treatment in all of these areas – and you can take advantage of that expertise whether you have an identified addiction related problem or not.

Therapies used

Behavioural Therapy, EMDR, Biofeedback, Christian Therapy, CBT, Cognitive Therapy, CISD, Dialectical, Existential Therapy, Exposure Therapy, Family Attachment, Family Systems, Gestalt Therapy, Grief Therapy, Group Therapy, Interpersonal, Narrative Therapy, Object-Relations, Occupational Therapy, Parent-Child, Rogerian Therapy, Recreation, Social Learning, Spiritual Therapy, Systems Therapy, Somatic Trauma Therapy

Counselling Therapy with Dr. Mike

- THE COMPASS ROSE HEALTH AND WELLNESS CENTRE

Treatment theories and approaches:

No discussion of “what I do” would be complete without an exploration of my use of various theories and approaches to counselling. I am probably best described as an eclectic therapist. This is because I have such a wide range of experiences, having been exposed to so many treatment modalities over my lifetime of therapy. It also means that I beg, borrow, and steel from many of them rather than following any one therapy. This is true of many experienced therapists. Currently few therapists are following any one approach or theory. Research has not found any one therapy that is better than all the others under all conditions and for all clients. This means that we adopt the Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual model. It states that you need to pay attention to all of these domains when working with people because for each person there will be a unique constellation of problems and therefore a unique approach to treatment.